The first sensation that filtered into Lin Xiao’s awakening mind was not the world-ending shrieking of spatial fissures, nor the acid-burning of void breakdown. But the gentle, honeyed warmth of early morning sunlight soaking through his semi-clear blue surface.
For the first time in what felt like several mortal lifespans, his internal dantian didn’t rumble with the violent churn of cosmic dark matter.
In the climactic hours of the last twilight, he had swelled his stretchy jelly body across three sky strata to swallow the continent-spanning Broodmother Nihil-Kraken whole. It had been an exhausting, all-consuming meal. Even with the Primordial Chaos Law Domain running at full throttle and his atom-deep digestion running at peak smooth speed, the sheer volume of dark cosmic tentacles and void marrow had left him feeling like an overstuffed dumpling on the verge of splitting its seams. But sixteen blissful hours of uninterrupted sleep upon his favorite stitched indigo floor cushion. Then, the digestion was complete.
Every rogue particle of entropic foul fog had been broken down into pure, golden Genesis Dew. His internal universe was quiet. It hummed with the gentle, steady beat of a calm mountain lake at sunrise.
No heartburn, Lin Xiao realized, flexing his jelly-like mass in pure contentment. Not even a phantom rumble. That void kraken was undeniably difficult to chew. But it settled down better than those spicy preserved ghost-peppers Old Man Tie brought back from the Southern Bluffs.
